Nicaraguan protesters have cracked leader’s grip

Published 1:09 pm, Thursday, April 26, 2018

Students march against the government of President Daniel Ortega in the capital, Managua.

Students march against the government of President Daniel Ortega in the capital, Managua.

Photo: Rodrigo Arangua / AFP / Getty Images

Nicaraguan protesters have cracked leader’s grip

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MASAYA, Nicaragua — The revolutionary, many Nicaraguans say, is suddenly facing a revolution of his own.

The insurrection that led to the rise of President Daniel Ortega and his Cold War struggles with the United States began here in Masaya 40 years ago. Ortega’s brother died fighting in this town, and an old national guard post still stands as a landmark to the uprising that brought their leftist guerrilla movement to power.

But in recent days, the guard post has been turned into a charred, vandalized mess. Protesters have even taken a famous war slogan and spray-painted it on the walls in a mocking warning to Ortega.

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“Let your momma surrender,” it says.

Nicaragua is undergoing its biggest uprising since the civil war ended in 1990.

Faced with a presidential couple — Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, is the nation’s vice president — that controls virtually every branch of government and the news media, young people across the nation are carrying out their own version of an Arab Spring. Armed with cell phones and social media skills, their challenge to the government has astonished residents who lived through Ortega’s revolution in the 1970s, the civil war in the ’80s and the 30 years since then.

Demonstrators have burned vehicles and barricaded intersections. Thousands have swarmed streets around the country, condemning government censorship and the killing of protesters. After fighting two wars, winning multiple elections and exerting very tight control over the country for years, Ortega has lost his grip on the masses and suddenly seems on the ropes.

The protests started with a relatively narrow issue — a change to the social security system — but they quickly rose to a national boil when students began to die. Human rights organizations say that dozens have been killed, including at the hands of the police.